beccaelizabeth (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
beccaelizabeth) wrote2007-02-13 01:19 pm
beccaelizabeth) wrote2007-02-13 01:19 pm
Entry tags:
Studying Plays
I like this book. It keeps making points and ties them to texts and it has a glossary in the back. All kinds of helpful.
protagonist Greek proto (first) agonistes (actor/combatant); nowadays used of the leading character.
***
p90
We thrive on stories; we love to hear them. And telling stories is a deeply human activity. Each of us has a notion of the story of our own life, which helps us make sense of who we are; it is part of our identity. We make sense of the world by making or learning stories about the world, ordering our experiences into causes and effects. The practices of science and medicine depend ons tories, as does commentary on the arts. We tell the history of the universe or evolution; connect in orderly fashion the nature of the virus, methods of infection, life habits, symptoms, the action of drugs (they change the situation), likely outcomes for individuals and the likely demographic scenario to come. And we sort artworks into movements or models of cultural production, linking them to events at large.
Just as theatre and playing can become part of a play's concerns (metatheatricality), some plays script a concern with our need for and delight in telling stories, of setting out a narrative, of making the disorderly confusions of real life settle down into an acceptable or pleasurable pattern.
[And some narratives compete, contest each other's version of events.]
[/quote]
***
Difference between action and event - the way I figure it, it's like those click clack thingies, Newton's cradle. Events are just stuff that happens, Actions change the situation. So events are all those balls in the middle and actions are the ones on the end that turn things around. Except for obviously it doesn't have to go back and forwards like that, it can go all over the place.
Anyways.
Human = storyteller.
Jack = storyteller.
And what stories he tells illuminates how he organises and explains the world, his cause and effect, his categories.
But most of the stories we hear from him - like, vast majority - are just about events. With or without the things he's telling the story of, he would still be the same Jack, pretty much. Unless you think the twin acrobats really changed his life.
Figuring out which stories are about Actions gets more complicated. Though I suspect it's inversely proportional to the amount of detail he puts in - play by play accounts are not going to be the important things.
Going back through Torchwood season 1 and finding which things click clack into which other things and where the turn around points are = intersting.
And Jack waking up with a "Thank You" is probably a really big turn around right there, compared/contrasted with "I felt so alive"
protagonist Greek proto (first) agonistes (actor/combatant); nowadays used of the leading character.
***
p90
We thrive on stories; we love to hear them. And telling stories is a deeply human activity. Each of us has a notion of the story of our own life, which helps us make sense of who we are; it is part of our identity. We make sense of the world by making or learning stories about the world, ordering our experiences into causes and effects. The practices of science and medicine depend ons tories, as does commentary on the arts. We tell the history of the universe or evolution; connect in orderly fashion the nature of the virus, methods of infection, life habits, symptoms, the action of drugs (they change the situation), likely outcomes for individuals and the likely demographic scenario to come. And we sort artworks into movements or models of cultural production, linking them to events at large.
Just as theatre and playing can become part of a play's concerns (metatheatricality), some plays script a concern with our need for and delight in telling stories, of setting out a narrative, of making the disorderly confusions of real life settle down into an acceptable or pleasurable pattern.
[And some narratives compete, contest each other's version of events.]
[/quote]
***
Difference between action and event - the way I figure it, it's like those click clack thingies, Newton's cradle. Events are just stuff that happens, Actions change the situation. So events are all those balls in the middle and actions are the ones on the end that turn things around. Except for obviously it doesn't have to go back and forwards like that, it can go all over the place.
Anyways.
Human = storyteller.
Jack = storyteller.
And what stories he tells illuminates how he organises and explains the world, his cause and effect, his categories.
But most of the stories we hear from him - like, vast majority - are just about events. With or without the things he's telling the story of, he would still be the same Jack, pretty much. Unless you think the twin acrobats really changed his life.
Figuring out which stories are about Actions gets more complicated. Though I suspect it's inversely proportional to the amount of detail he puts in - play by play accounts are not going to be the important things.
Going back through Torchwood season 1 and finding which things click clack into which other things and where the turn around points are = intersting.
And Jack waking up with a "Thank You" is probably a really big turn around right there, compared/contrasted with "I felt so alive"
no subject
And what stories he tells illuminates how he organises and explains the world, his cause and effect, his categories.
And what is important to him.
most of the stories we hear from him - like, vast majority - are just about events.
You think so? I'd say he has two categories of anecdote - the first, definitely about events, are the stories about about people and relationships. The stories he tells about actions are about averting disaster, or people's reactions to disaster.
With or without the things he's telling the story of, he would still be the same Jack, pretty much.
You think so? Which stories are you thinking of?
Setting aside the twin acrobats, the stories he tells which spring to my mind first are all about survival. Facing death in "The Doctor Dances", he talks about his escape from death when he seduced his executioners. Facing Mary in "Greeks Bearing Gifts", he tells a story about unexpected transformation from one state to another. Relaxing in Cardiff, he talks about escaping a rampaging monster. So I'd say these anecdotes tend to focus on factors of surivial and identity.
Unless you think the twin acrobats really changed his life.
Taking Jack's anecdotes as analogies, the story of the twin acrobats is meant to illustrate that temperamental scenes don't impress him, and that in the game of using words as weapons and defense, he's a master at the game. It's an illustration of strategy - he's telling Gwen he can play this situation better than she can.
He also tends to take these stories from the personal/immediate to the public/timeless. From "my boyfriend used to sulk and storm" to "I should write a book"; from "I was about to die" to "they kept in touch".
You raise some very interesting questions, and ways of looking at Jack's personality and depiction I hadn't thought of.
no subject
cause that all works
:-)
no subject
No wonder I relate to Jack. I can just jabber on. Topic really doesn't matter...! Except it's more fun if the topic is Jack.